


Family Business

by OatBreeze



Series: Forever Friends [3]
Category: Power Rangers Dino Charge, Power Rangers Wild Force
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OatBreeze/pseuds/OatBreeze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Riley's Aunt comes to visit, the Dino Charge Rangers have to juggle battling a tough monster and keeping their identities a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The more I thought about the Taylor bit in "Family Ties", the more I liked it... So screw it, Taylor is Riley's aunt.
> 
> Check me out on tumblr. I'm zookreeper.

Chase watches Riley bend over and clean up the spilled drinks. He's so jittery today.

 

“Mate, what's up?” he finally asks after the last of the Dr. Pepper is wiped away.

 

“My aunt's on leave,” Riley tells him. “She said she wanted to see me and I don't know why.” He tosses the soda-soaked rag into the dirty dish sink from across the kitchen.

 

“Ms. Morgan's gonna kill you if she see's you do that again,” Shelby says as she passes through, picking up three BrontoBurgers for table four.

 

“What's she do, your aunt?” Chase asks.

 

“She's a Major in the Air Force. I know she used to be a pilot, but she switched tracks a couple of years ago. I don't know what she does now.”

 

Their communicators go off a few minutes later and they're off fighting a monster that looks someone took the iron throne and squashed it into the shape of a kangaroo. Chase is having a blast making so many jokes that people are supposed to get. No one else on the team does. They don't destroy the monster, but they manage to make it retreat.

 

When they return, laughing at a joke Tyler made, there's a woman in a blue uniform chowing down on a burger in the DinoCafe. Riley's face lights up.

 

“Aun'Tay!” He rushes over. “I thought you'd be in the hotel. You weren't supposed to show up until my shift was over.”

 

His aunt shakes her head. “We were going to check in, but there was a thing going on downtown. The entire area went on lockdown. Your Uncle's waiting for them to get everything up and running again, but I decided to see how you were doing.” She looks over at Tyler and Chase. “These your friends?” she asks.

 

“Yeah,” Riley says, and introduces them.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Taylor's only a step inside the hotel room when she starts unpinning the severe bun her blonde hair has been twisted into. Eric flips his work laptop closed and looks up at her.

“How'd it go?” he asks her.

Taylor unfastens her neck tabs and tosses them in the general direction of the suitcase. “Nothing got ruled out,” she sighs.

“You know,” Eric begins, “you could just come out and ask him.”

“He wouldn't know why I'm asking.”

“Did he say anything that would make you think he is one?”

“No, but his friends he was with, they look it. They're wearing the colors.” Taylor pulled off her shirt and shrugged into the top of her pajamas. She flipped the lid of Eric's laptop back up. “We have video of that fight today, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“When they were walking in, one of his friend's had a taped arm. Riley said it was a skateboarding accident, but,” she angled the screen towards Eric. “The black ranger got hit pretty bad this last fight.” The clip she played showed the black ranger attempting to attack, but rebuffed and landing hard on the pavement. His suit flickered for a moment, not enough to demorph him, but enough to mess up the emitters.

Eric closed the laptop and set it on the bed's side table. “We've got a week before you have to be back. We'll figure something out.” He kissed his wife, then turned over, falling asleep almost immediately.

–

When she walked into the Cafe to meet Riley the next day, she found him sitting with four other people. In one hand, he held most of a burger and the other was gesticulating wildly. He mimed a sword slash and was about to continue the obviously thrilling take when the only girl at the table poked him and pointed at Taylor's approach.

Riley turned around and smiled. It was a giant grin, splitting his face almost in two. He swallowed the half chewed food in his mouth and jumped up to give her another hug.

Looking over the kids (and they were kids!), the colors matched up. Taylor spent half a second looking for their yellow before remembering that they didn't have a yellow.

Riley's friends were kind enough to clear out so that she could talk with him. Riley couldn't focus on the conversation, though. His eyes kept flicking over her head. Taylor turned around to see what he was seeing. In the main lobby of the museum, a tv played breaking news.

Four of the power rangers were fighting the steel kangaroo again. Riley flinched. The blue one was hit hard and rolled behind a car. The faint flash meant that he has probably demorphed.

Taylor turned back to Riley. His teeth held his lower lip in a white-hot death grip. He flinched again. Taylor couldn't take it anymore. “Do you have your morpher?” she asked him.

All the blood drained from his face. “I– I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Your morpher, do you have it with you?”

Riley opened his mouth to protest, but stopped. He was caught and the quickest way to get uncaught and out helping his friends was to come clean. “No,” he said quietly. “It's in my stuff.”

Taylor stood up. “Grab it, and meet me in the front. I can get you there quicker than you can on your own.”


	3. Chapter 3

Riley ran around the side of the museum, each slapping step echoing in his head. How had Aun'Tay known he was a ranger? The Lair was empty, god-be-thanked, and he's able to grab his chargers and get out of there in less than a minute. In the pickup loop of the museum parking lot was a black SUV. He was only going to give it a glance when the back passenger door popped open. Taylor is there holding it open and he dives in. As they speed away, sirens sound from on the roof.

"We can get through the barricade," Taylor is saying. Riley's eyes flash back to her. "But the fight has moved towards the middle of the park. We'll get you as close as we can."

Riley is still in shock because he finally looks at the driver. The man at the wheel is is Uncle Eric, driving like a maniac.

Eric slams on the breaks and Riley leaps out of the car.

The fight doesn't seem to be going well. Koda and Tyler have both demorphed, but Chase and Shelby aren't doing much better. Riley immediately leaps in, materializing his DinoSabre to slash at a vivix advancing on Tyler.

"Glad you got here," Tyler says as Riley helps him up. "What excuse did you give your aunt?"

Better to be honest. "She knew I was a ranger," he says after a moment.

"We'll deal with that later." Tyler whips out his DinoCharger. "It's morphin' time!"

\--

Watching from the street, Taylor smiles. Riley is morphed and fighting Scabbaroo. The fight is going pretty well. The four others launch the red ranger up and he drives their combined weapon, a spear, straight through the monster. The monster falls and Taylor starts scanning the edge of the battle. Where is their version of Toxica?

She apparently missed them because Scabbaroo is now huge. The rangers call their zords and Scabbaroo is defeated. The zords leave and Taylor starts waiting for Riley and his team.

It's almost thirty minutes later when Riley and his team show up. The team stays a hundred yards back while Riley is the only one to walk up to the SUV. He knocks on the door. Taylor opens it. "We need to talk," he says and Taylor nods.


	4. Chapter 4

The kid's team doesn't move at all in the time it takes Eric to park the SUV. Only when they're walking back do they leave. As he and Taylor walk back to Riley, the kid glances between the two of them and his phone. They're standing in front of him before he puts it away.

Riley looks at them, steely eyed. "My red ranger says we are going to go the the picnic area down the East trail. You're being recorded right now. Make any weird moves and you won't like what happens."

Eric nods. The kid and his friends are taking this seriously. Good.

The kid suddenly stops. "What's in the container?" he points at the bright yellow tackle box Eric is holding underneath his arm.

"It's a first aid kit."

"Open it."

Eric chuckles, but opens it. The kid flicks through everything, but quickly closes it up.

Down the park's east trail, a five minute walk from the open areas, is a sheltered meadow with three different picnic tables. The kid's team is waiting at the furthest one. There is an open spot where Riley gestures for them to sit.

Their red, black and pink are on the other side of the table, their blue is standing guard near the trail. Riley sits next to them. Eric and Taylor sit down and Eric unstraps his morpher and lays it in the middle of the table, almost out his reach. If the kids are going to treat this seriously, he'll oblige them and disarm.

"What's that?" Red asks.

"My morpher," Eric says. That shakes up the new team.

"You were a power ranger?" Pink asks.

"I was a Sixth in 2001," Eric confirms. Riley looks at his aunt. "What about you?" he asks her.

"I was a Yellow, but I gave up my morpher."

Riley nods, then stops. "You were MIA, was that when?"

"Yes." Taylor folds her hands in front of her and lays them on the table. "I work for the Department of Homeworld Security," Taylor says. "My office provides support to active ranger teams for things they can't get on their own. This trip was to see if Riley was indeed a part of your team and for a meet-and-greet."

"Why did you think I was one?"

"Two reasons, one of which is classified. The other is I saw video of one of your fights. Fourth of July, when you were nine, do you remember it?"

Riley frowns at the abrupt change of subject. "You got me my first metal sabre."

"And then you tried to use it instead of a bat at the family baseball game." Taylor looks directly at him. "There's a video from a couple weeks ago of the green ranger deflecting energy shots with his sword. Your mom put out the word that you were in Amber Beach to avoid my brother. I put two and two together."

Red pushes Eric's morpher back at him. Eric takes it after a second and straps it back on. "I'm Tyler," Red says. The rest of the team introduces themselves shortly after.


	5. Chapter 5

Bringing the first aid kit had been a good idea. The black ranger had a gash on his arm that needed wrapping. For any normal human, the cut would have required stitches. Riley grabbed a roll of gauze and went over to his teammate. Chase just rolled his eyes and held out his arm. Apparently, they had been through this before.

Taylor looked at the rest of the team. "Is there anything right now that we can do for you?" she asked them. The boys shook their heads no.

Shelby was quiet for a moment. "Koda," she finally said. "He doesn't have an ID."

"Okay," Taylor said. "We can work with that." She took out a small notebook and began writing in it. "Are any of you renting?" she asked.

Tyler and Chase raised their hands. Taylor raised an eyebrow and looked at her nephew. "The farm's a little far, Ri." The Griffin family farm was almost fifty miles away.

"I'm staying with Casey in Ocean Bluff."

Taylor nodded. Ocean Bluff was the next town up the coast. Much closer. "The US has a grant program where they will pay for lodging within reason while you are active." She flipped to a different page of her notebook and scribbled out a web address before ripping out the page and giving it to them. "The application is here. Verification code is 'TEMSE!4'.

"If there is anything else you can think of, Riley has my number." Taylor stood up.

Riley stood up as well. "I'll walk you to the truck," he told her and Eric.

They got to the truck and Taylor turned and hugged him. "If you don't want to talk to me, talk to Casey," she murmured in his ear. "He knows what's up."

Riley got wide-eyed, then nodded. "I will."


End file.
